SUB-HEADING: F"ollowing his acquittal, Zadorov fought back tears, saying simply that "the truth won. I want to go home, to my children."
GIST: "Roman Zadorov was acquitted of Tair Rada's murder by the Nazareth District court on Thursday morning in a retrial of his 2010 conviction after new evidence brought his conviction into doubt.
Judges Asher Kula and Danny Sarfati were in favor of the acquittal, with Judge Tammar Nissim Shai in dissent. The majority opinion contended that there were far too many inconsistencies in the evidence to reasonably determine Zadorov as the murderer.
"The truth won,” Zadorov said while fighting back tears outside the courthouse after his acquittal. “I want to go home, to my children."
Zadorov's sister said, "we will start a better life, from here on."
According to the majority opinion, Zadorov’s confession of cutting the throat of 13-year-old Rada in 2006 in a bathroom stall in the Katzrin school where he worked as a custodian was false and full of contradictions.
Zadorov had retracted the confession days after giving it, and Sarfati noted that it was preceded by a mental breakdown and the custodian may have believed that the punishment would be mitigated if he had admitted to the crime.
Kula said that "the findings at the scene did not match the defendant's confession."
----------------------------------------------
"Why would the accused murder a girl? Why would the accused choose to kill someone at his place of work, a crowded school? Why would he choose to leave a case full of evidence, say that he threw out his pants, agree to give DNA?"
Judge Dani Zarfati
----------------------------------------------
Sarfati also said that "after examining the details, I came to the conclusion that the confession is nothing more than a hollow, weightless recitation of statements and scenarios."
Nissim Shai had disputed that there were contradictions in the confession and was convincing. She argued that there was no confession of greater weight than that of the accussed.
No satisfactory motive was given for Zadorov to kill Rada, Kula and Sarfati said.
The prosecution's narrative that Zadorov had flown into a rage after Rada had asked for cigarettes and insulted him when denied was disputed by the testimony of her friends who said that she hated the smell of cigarette smoke. There was also no past conduct by Rada in line with this story.
The prosecution's characterization of Zadorov as both a calculating "super chess player" mastermind and an impulsive sexual degenerate were in contradiction with one another, according to Kula.
"This is not a sadist, a sophisticated manipulator subject to uncontrollable fits of rage, capable of murdering a little girl," Kula said in his assessment of Zadorov.
"The attempt to present the defendant as an explosive, deviant and violent person is a complete failure on our part," said Sarfati.
Sarfati questioned why Zadorov if he were indeed guilty, would commit the crime in his workplace in broad daylight, and why he would leave work items in the bathroom that could be tied to him.
It was further challenged as to how a guilty person would leave such a violent crime scene covered in blood with no witnesses and had managed to clean himself off and then engage in small talk instead of fleeing the scene.
--------------------------------------------------------
"This is not a sadist, a sophisticated manipulator subject to uncontrollable fits of rage, capable of murdering a little girl."
Judge Asher Kula
--------------------------------------------------------
The majority opinion also questioned the lack of forensic evidence clearly tying Zadorov to the scene.
Nissim Shai said that she "found the evidence presented to be tight and well-founded. It holds, beyond any reasonable doubt, the proof of the defendant's guilt."
"Absence does not constitute evidence," said Kula, but as stated by Sarfati, "How is it that in such a chaotic scene like in our case, which includes a fight, a scuffle, cuts and placing the body on the toilet, there were no fingerprints or any other forensic findings indicating the accused at the murder site?"
No blood was found on the defendant's shoes, but foreign footprints were found in the cubicle. Due to the drying of blood and the time emergency services arrived, could not be attributed to them.
Olga Kravchenko, Adir Habani and the evidence at the scene
Hair found at the scene also did not match Zadorov, though Nissim Shai argued that it did not necessarily belong to the killer. A July 2022 mitochondrial DNA test of the hair showed an inconclusive match to Adir Habani, the former partner of another possible suspect in the murder case - Olga Kravchenko.
Kravchenko had been a key witness against Zadorov, used by the prosecution to highlight that the custodian was the sole plausible witness.
Kula ordered the continued investigation into the DNA evidence and the possibility that it did indeed belong to Habani. Zadorov and his lawyers have alleged Kravchenko to be the true killer, and Rada's mother, Ilana, has previously called for the arrest of both Kravchenko and Habani.
Kravenchko was accused of the murder by Habani, who claimed at the time that she had worn his clothes in order to carry it out.
However, the case against Kravenchko was closed due to lack of evidence, and after Habani confessed to Israel Police that he had beaten and raped her throughout their 10-year relationship.
At the verdict on Thursday, Kola ordered the continued investigation into the mitochondrial DNA and the possibility that it did indeed belong to Habani.
To date, no hairs with a mitochondrial profile that matches either Zadorov or Kravchenko have been received.
Following the conclusion of the trial, Ilana Rada exited the courtroom, and declared that "Justice has been done, but the war is only just beginning."
While her husband believed Zadorov to be his daughter’s killer, Ilana Rada had consistently argued for Zadorov’s innocence. She contended that the police and State Attorney's Office had framed the Ukrainian immigrant. Former Shin Bet deputy director Itzhak Ilan also joined her in accusations of law enforcement misconduct in recordings leaked after his death.
The controversy about the investigation and prosecution grew even as he was sentenced to life in prison.
New evidence led the High Court of Justice to order the lower courts to reexamine the case in 2013, but Zadorov’s conviction was upheld in 2014. Zadorov filed multiple appeals -- the High Court again upheld the verdict in 2015 -- but in July 2021 the court ruled for a retrial.
In August of that year, Zadorov was released to house arrest. The verdict of the highly publicized case had been delayed multiple times.
The intense public interest in the case was referenced by Kula, who said that despite it, the court had ignored the media storm when deliberating the verdict. The case spawned rumors and theories, such as those of local teenagers committing the murder and a cover-up by teachers.
Zadorov was seen by some as vulnerable for prosecutors to pin the crime to, as he had settled in Israel under unstable legal circumstances. Kula said that he hoped that the verdict would calm the public furor over the case.
"An innocent girl of about 13 years old, she died in a brutal murder in what was supposed to be a shelter," said Kula. "The school where she acquired tools for life, became a murder scene where the life of the late Tair Rada was taken. Our hearts and condolences go out to her family."
----------------------------------------------------
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-735889
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
------------------------------------------------------------------
YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------
